Much of life is invisible to us, until we take time to make it visible.
Imagine that you were born on a Merry-Go-Round. I mean it, please do your best to imagine that your mother actually gave birth to you while she was on a Merry-Go-Round, and that you have lived on it all your life. Imagine not ever stepping off the Merry-Go-Round, not even for one minute, sleeping, eating, working, and even going to the bathroom on the Merry-Go-Round.
Even more, imagine that the speed of the Merry-Go-Round has gradually increased by one RPM (revolution per minute) each year.
How would you know you were on a Merry-Go-Round?
Even more, how would you know that its speed has increased by 40 RPM's (or whatever is your age) over the last 40 years, and that you are spending more and more time simply "hanging on?"
The answer, of course, is that you would not know! The Merry-Go-Round would be invisible to you. In a sense, you are a victim of being born on the Merry-Go-Round. The Merry Go-Round influences everything we do.
Did you hear me? The Merry-Go-Round influences EVERYTHING!
The Merry-Go-Round includes things like "the way things are at work, at home, within our relationships," and "our attitudes, beliefs, and assumptions about ourselves and our surroundings." Most significantly, the Merry-Go-Round includes “the way I think about myself, and those that surround me.” Almost all these facets of the Merry-Go-Round are invisible to us. Most disturbingly, ALL these facets of the Merry-Go-Round are actively causing problems, mainly because we have not bothered to acknowledge them.
The Merry-Go-Round symbolizes the invisible forces which influence people to do what they should not do.
Of course, it is not hopeless. There are at least two ways for all of us to see the Merry-Go-Round (that is, the truth of any situation we encounter in life).
First, consider what might happen if an outsider were to step onto your Merry-Go-Round! Immediately they would sense the whirling, spinning world in which you live. They would instantly feel a need to "hold onto something." They would ask you "what is happening here, and why have you been living like this for so long?"
It's not that they are smarter than you. It's simply that they are an outsider, and therefore can instantly sense what you have become anesthetized to over the years. Unfortunately, most people will actually be offended by the outsider's "silly questions" about "the way it is" on the MGR. Most people say to themselves "they don't know what they're talking about. How foolish they are!"
For those people that refuse to listen to the outsiders in their lives (most of us fall into this category), there is another way to make the Merry-Go-Round visible: Unexpected, Unplanned PAIN.
Things that go wrong in our lives (on our Merry-Go-Rounds) are the only thing capable of prying us out of the unworthy grooves of our existences. In fact:
Failure is the only phenomena in our existence capable of getting our attention when we're "too busy" doing other things! Nothing else can snatch us away from our own objectives, desires, and goals and force us to look at the most important facets of life.
Latent Cause Analysis is a direct attempt to make the Merry-Go-Rounds of our lives visible, so that we can DO SOMETHING about them.
Important Points:
- Much of our lives are influenced by conditions that we never question.
- Most of what we never question is ourselves.
- Outsiders can often see these adverse conditions, both within ourselves and our surroundings.
- Much of what Latent Cause Analysis does is makes these adverse conditions visible.
- It is not possible to act on something until we make it visible.
- Unexpected, unplanned pain is the only phenomena of life capable of making adverse conditions visible.
